For 27 years, Chemical Waste Management has stored and buried waste contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, a highly toxic substance also known as PCBs. Eleven years after the intended expiration of its permit, federal environmental officials are still trying to decide whether the facility should get a permit renewal to continue its management of the chemical for at least another decade.

Kettleman Hills, the West's largest hazardous waste landfill, is the only California facility permitted to accept PCBs, making it a key location for the country's waste control.

But more than 1,500 Kettleman City residents -- mostly poor Latino farmworkers -- live less than four miles from the edge of the landfills. And they are far from pleased at having cancer-causing chemical waste nearby, alongside two highways where hundreds of diesel trucks pass through each day and sludge farm operations are situated nearby.

On Wednesday, Kettleman City residents weren't shy in voicing their concerns.

They not only told federal officials that a PCB operation is too close to their community, but complained of high rates of asthma and cancer rates as well as cases of cleft palate among babies.

"You don't know what's happening in this town. There's a lot of people dying of cancer," said Angela Borroyo, a 42-year resident of Kettleman City. "Since 1997, we have lost a lot of people ... Do you know what kind of pain we've been going through?"

Borroyo was among a horde of residents who attended the public meeting hosted by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials at the town's elementary school cafeteria Wednesday night.

Some of the same people filled the room nearly two years ago, when U.S. EPA officials held a community meeting to propose a draft permit renewal as well as an Environmental Justice Assessment that found no evidence that Kettleman City or Avenal are adversely affected by the landfill.

Irate with the findings, the residents have since flooded the EPA with comments, officials said.

"We received about 350 comments. Since that time, we've been reviewing those comments. A few of these comments asked for some technical information about the facility that we didn't have," said Cheryl Nelson, manager of EPA's Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Facilities Management Office. "So we're now requiring (the company) to collect additional data, and we're going to use that information to do a reassessment of our decision."

The meeting was held to explain to Kettleman City residents what that additional data is and how the EPA will use the information.

PCBs -- once used in paints, lubricants, transformers and other products -- have been linked to cancer and birth defects. Congress banned their use in 1976.

Specifically, the EPA is telling Chem Waste to monitor the air throughout the day as well as the soil, water and vegetation around the facility more closely for PCBs to determine whether the chemical is released from the facility and if so, whether it's bad enough to make people sick.

The state has monitored PCBs in the air twice a month during the past few years but has found nothing.

The U.S. EPA will go much further, said Patrick Wilson, EPA's senior toxicologist. The agency will require monitoring of the air around the facility throughout the day looking for individual PCBs, or "congeners," that are linked to birth defects and cancer, Wilson said.

Bob Henry, Kettleman Hills operations manager, said a new study required by the EPA presents an "opportunity" for the facility to clear its name.

"The congener study the U.S. EPA is requiring the facility to do, I think, will have the finality to it as to whether the facility has any releasing of PCBs," Henry said. "If there are health conditions here in town, it'll be good to demonstrate that it's not coming from our facility."

Of some 700,000 cubic yards of waste dumped in the facility each year, about 50,000 account for PCB waste, said Nelson.

During Wednesday's meeting, Wilson quoted county-provided statistics and said that 2.97 cases of birth defects per 1,000 live births were reported from Kettleman City between 1998-2005 -- a number far lower when compared with 13.7 for Kings County and 12.27 for the entire Valley.

Such a report set off an angry reaction from residents who counted off families they know and identified at least five babies born with birth defects over the past year.

"How can a community this small have so many birth defects going on and nobody's alarmed?" said Maricela Mares-Alatorre, a member of People for Clean Air and Water in Kettleman City. "He can look up his statistics on the Internet, but the fact is that we live them. We see these people everyday. It's happening."

Mares-Alatorre urged the EPA to conduct an in-depth community health survey.

Bradley Angel, executive director of San Francisco-based Greenaction, called Wednesday's meeting a "victory" for the community."

"Tonight's meeting was an outcome of the victory won by the community in stopping the EPA from issuing a PCB permit renewal two years ago," Angel said.

Angel criticized the EPA, saying it is ignoring the cumulative effects of the landfill operation on Kettleman City residents' health.

"Aren't they also exposed to cancer-causing chemicals from pesticides? Aren't they also exposed to chemicals from diesel? And aren't they also exposed to other stuff released from Chem Waste that you don't recognize? Isn't it true that a little bit of each of these can add up in your body to cause cumulative health impacts?" Angel said.

Henry said the Kettleman Hills Facility has a good environmental record. He invited anyone from the community to tour the facility.

Wednesday's PCB permit process meeting won't be the last time this year that environmental groups and residents are expected to protest and voice concerns against the landfill operations.

Henry sees that as a positive.

"It's very positive that the fear of the unknown is addressed," Henry said. "And it's not an unknown. It's the unexplained that we're working on."

Tension, however, is flaring up because the facility is reaching capacity and needs to expand.

The company now operates a new bioreactor, which uses liquid to speed up the breakdown of non-hazardous waste, and is poised to start operating new municipal solid waste landfill B-17 this month.

Chem Waste now wants to expand one of its landfills from 53 acres to 64 acres and build a new 64-acre landfill.

A controversial battle is continuing on these proposals.

Angel vowed to fight the projects to the end.

"I've worked with at least 1,000 communities like this, and what's going on here is one of the most egregious violations of human rights and justice that I've seen," he said.

The reporter can be reached at 583-2429.